Module 5 – Info-Communication Concepts

Piracy is Good?

After reading the articles and the YouTube of “Piracy is Good?” I realise the winner always on the viewer’s side, they have a choice of watching from TV (for free) or downloading from internet (for free) like using BitTorrent or other downloading programs.

The problem is people have too many choice or way of getting piracy stuff from internet or pirated DVD etc. I still remember when I first come to Australia to study during 90s and some of the movies showing few months later I was watching from the cinema from where I am from.

When I am settling down later in Australia I guess I know why. It is all about piracy, some of the movies and TV programs showing so late in Australia because I believe the piracy here weren’t as bad as Asia and US, therefore they can hold it for a while. I am from Asia so I know how bad it is and I guess whoever been to Asia country for holiday I am pretty sure you will see the pirated DVD movies or TV programs selling everywhere and cheap, some of the quality is much better than the original DVD. Sometime you may be able to get the latest movie from pirated DVD before it show on cinema.

This happen back then, but now we all talk about downloading from internet. The same things happen like you can watch the latest movie or TV program right after it finish from the other country, you just have to search it from internet and you will be able to download it, how convenience!

Piracy not just limited on movies and TV programs, it actually happens to musics and softwares. Now a day movies can’t just rely on the box office they have to depend on other merchandising like games, toys, books, and sponsors etc. to make more money. TV programs can’t rely on TV commercial too much; they are getting a new way of injecting the new idea on TV screen like watermark of the company or product on screen, the reason is people may download the program instead of watch from TV; therefore they can fast forward the commercial. According to the “Piracy is Good” from YouTube and the articles, they are downloading to watch whenever and wherever on any devices they want, they are not limited themselves only to TV.

Music industrial having the same problem, they are too many way of getting the song from internet. You can choose to download a whole album or pick any song you like to download. Singers and the music company making less money from the album, so they have to do touring around the world of making more money from the fans, sponsors etc. You also can find the full version of softwares to download from internet for free instead of paying few hundred to few thousand just to get one copy. Technology changes very often so that people prefer to download it for personal use. However software industrial maybe the one less impact for the piracy because many of the company will prefer to use original then pirated, in term of less problem of the software and legal issue.

The technology of BitTorrent is one the best invention to sharing files around the world, but it just happen for the people to use it for piracy purpose. This definitely is good for people who downloading files from internet for free and sure not good for the company who spend millions and million to make it and develop it. The bigger question is when will piracy end or it will be never end? I guess we still have a very long way to go and find out.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 5: Info-Communication Concepts. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985244_1

Pesce, M. (2005). Piracy is Good? How Battlestar Galactica Killed Broadcast TV. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from
http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html

Pesce, M. (2005). Piracy is Good? The New laws of Television. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from http://www.mindjack.com/feature/newlaws052105.html

Piracy is Good? (2007). YouTube. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxCoCTc3T5Q&feature=related

Module 4 – Evaluating the Web

Choose your best 'source' or site from the three you used in the last task, then evaluate it according to the tutorial Ohio SU net.Tutor.

LOG ENTRY:
Record your annotation in your learning log. (Allen et al. n.d.)

I believe most of the people will choose an article to do this task unfortunately I am not. I choose this consider my best source because “movie database” is not an article, it is actually a database of all the movies from pass to the latest. As I said before from the previous task I have try quite many of the movies from this database and it actually have all the information, which is why I decided to give it a try for using this “movie database” for this task.


Annotation

This is quite a reliable site for all the movie lovers, it contain not just the latest movie it also have many old and classic movie like “Monkeyshines No. 1” from 1890. This web site is actually very informative about the movie, it gives you all the information about the director, writer, actor and actress, release date, plot, under what movie category, runtime, which country from, language and many more. You can actually click and find out more about the director or anything you are interest in. This site kind a provided almost everything like selling DVD, message board for fans, the latest of TV and movie news, top box-office earn, photo gallery etc. This web site definitely fulfils net. Tutor's 6 main key points, like purpose, author, content, coverage, currency, and recognition. It also mentions more than 57 million movie and TV lover visited every month, I believe this web site not only for movie or TV lovers it is actually for anyone who like to do some research about the movie or TV program.

Reference
The Internet Movie Database. (n.d.). IMDb.com.Inc. Retrieved August 12, 2009, from http://www.imdb.com/



in terms of your own future use, which 'body ' of information (ie. the original 'snapshot' of the site, or your own, annotated, analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to? (Allen et al. n.d.)

I would say the annotated analytical version would be better than snapshot. To be honest the design of the web site not so good, it may not drawn people attention to look at it. Therefore annotated analytical version sure will be the best summary of this web site, because it tell you more of the web site then the snapshot.


In term of external users (i.e. if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them? (Allen et al. n.d.)

Same again and I still believe the annotated analytical version would be more useful for the external user. It gives them quick and short summary write-up what is all about the web site, which I don’t think the snapshot would be able to achieve that. My annotation gives them more information than just look at the snapshot, although visual may draw people attention than words, but I don’t think is happen to this web site.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 4: Using the infosphere: taking & organising. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 12, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985243_1

Module 4 – Organising search information task

Choose the best three sources found in the previous task. Using whatever software or tool you think appropriate, record the following information about those sites:
· URL.
· author,
· institution,
· blurb/ summary / screen shot

LOG ENTRY:
Record this information in your learning log, and also detail how you saved this information, what software you used and why. (Allen et al. n.d.)

URL 1: http://www.imdb.com/
Author: IMDb (The Internet Movie Database)
Institute: IMDb.com.Inc
Blurb/Summary/Screenshot: This web site is the most popular movie database according to the search engine. It gives you all the information about the movies such as the directors, writers, release date, plot, casting, posters etc. You also can buy DVD, read the latest news of movies and go to official sites and watch the trailers.


URL 2: http://www.allmovie.com/
Author: Macrovision Corporation
Institute: Macrovision Corporation
Blurb/Summary/Screenshot: This web site is quite the same as the IMDb website, but it give you more choice like you can link to music and game. So you can search all types of movie, music and game from this site.

URL 3: http://www.dianying.com/en/
Author: Chinese Movie Database
Institute: Chinese Movie Database
Blurb/Summary/Screenshot: This is Chinese movie database web site; it provided all the Chinese movies information mainly from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and some other Asia country. You can get the latest DVD from the site, check out the movie awards, news of the latest movies and etc.

I have decided to use word document to save all my information, the reason is convenience for me. I put all the information into my USB and I can bring it to anywhere and I can do it anytime I want. Actually I did this for all my tasks, I type in all the information into word document and saved it accordingly to the module and task, so it is organised and easy for me to refer with. I do the same for the entire screen shot as well, whenever I look for the document file the screen shot will next to it. When I finish the task I just have to copy and paste into blog instead of typing in straight from blog, which I find it quite difficult for me to read sometimes.

You may think why not use software or tool to do the job for you? I did and I have all the information on my laptop, too bad I do not carry my laptop around because I don’t think is convenience and it actually quite heavy too. I also pdf all the module and articles I have read from module and save it into module folder, so I can bring it around with me and I can read it wherever I want.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 4: Using the infosphere: taking & organising. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 11, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985243_1

Module 4 – Boolean searching task

Boolean searching task

Taking the same key words of your last search, think about how you would best search for the following:
· the biggest number of hits relating to these key words
· information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to look for!
· information coming only from university sources

LOG ENTRY:
Discuss your strategies with the class and record the exact search terms you used in your learning log. (Allen et al. n.d.)

I heard and I have tried to use “OR” and “AND” to search some keyword on Internet before, but I never heard of “NOT”. After study Boolean’s “Boolean Searching on the Internet”, I try to include “NOT” into my “Movie Database” searching from Google and Yahoo and the result are not much different.

The hits result for Google search are:

The hits result for Yahoo search are:

Actually I was expected there will be quite different in between the search of “OR”, “AND” and “NOT” for the “Movie database”. Unfortunately the result returns quite the same from Google and Yahoo. The search from Yahoo is much more then Google. The biggest hits from Google are 132,000,000 and 233,000,000 for Yahoo.

I guess “Movie database” is quite limited on internet, therefore the results are consider similar and no big different. The result I got back from Google and Yahoo are the same, the majority are from “The Internet Movie Database (IMDb)” I guess non of the movie database is bigger than this web site, thus whoever are looking for movie data it will be direct to this web site. I have been try to search quite many movies from this site and it actually have all of them, so I believe this will be the best choice of searching movies from the old to latest movies.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 4: Using the infosphere: taking & organising. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985243_1

Module 4 – Search engine task

What to do

1. Choose your most commonly used internet search engine and do a search with words of your choosing.

LOG ENTRY:
Record the first hit and number of hits in your learning log (Allen et al. n.d.)

The most commonly used search engine for me will be Google and my search topic is “Movie Database”. The result return 1 - 10 of about 115,000,000 for Movie database. (0.29 seconds).


2. Using copernicus or similar, set it up to search at least three search engines (including one that will search the 'deep web') and repeat eactly the same search

LOG ENTRY:
Record the number of hits in your learning log, and compare to your first
search. What differences did you notice? Why? Which search, on first
glance gave you the most promising results? (Allen et al. n.d.)

I continued to use the same word “Movie Database” to search for it. The result for Google showed above, this time I try Sherlock from my Mac OSX 10.4 to compare with Google and see how different the result is.

The search result from Sherlock was 33. Obviously the first thing I notice was the number of results it is huge different compared with Google. The result not really surprise me, I knew it will be big different but I just want to try and experience it. Apparently Google gave the most promising result for this search. It could be Google is a search engine and go further for searching than Sherlock, and Sherlock is not really a search engine therefore the result is so difference.


3. Save at least the first 5 hits of both searches.

Google.com search
1. w1ww.imdb.com/
2. www.allmovie.com/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database
4. www.dianying.com/en/
5. http://hkmdb.com/

Sherlock search
1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=bestsitefirstcom&path=tg/browse/-/404272
2. http://www.imdb.com/
3. h ttp://www.movies.com/
4. http://websearch.about.com/od/freevideos/f/movie-database.htm?iam=sherlock_abc
5. http://websearch.about.com/b/2006/12/07/internet-movie-database-a-movie-search-engine-2.htm?iam=sherlock_abc

Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 4: Using the infosphere: taking & organising. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985243_1

Module 4 –Downloading tools / plug-ins Task

What to do

Below are a list of suggested programs that may be of use in assignment 1: Try downloading at least two unfamiliar programs (if you do not already have them: for those who have most or all, offer alternatives, or make sure you have the most up-to-date copy). Find out what the programs offer and spend a bit of time familiarising yourself with their operation (do not spend too much time on this, as some of these programs will be utilised in later tasks).

LOG ENTRY:
In your learning log record which programs you downloaded and note which (if any) facets you think might prove useful. (Allen et al. n.d.)

Media Players - Real Player 11

I am a Mac user so Quicktime player will be my first choice for playing all the video files, I do install Windows Media Player too because some of the video files need to be open from Windows Media Player and both of them are the most common video players. I have to say that I have never use Real Player before but I do see some of my friend has it and I don’t see any different so I did not install on my computer.

Real Player 11 is the latest version therefore I choose to install it and try for this task. The design of Real Player 11 seems like not much different with Quicktime Player and the interface look nicer than Windows Media Player. I guess Real Player doesn’t like my laptop or my laptop is too old for latest version of Real Player. When I play the video file it will pause for few second, and I get to listen the sound first but not the video. So I thought my computer is running out of memory therefore I restart my laptop and try it again.

After restart my laptop the first thing I open Real Player again and player the same video file and it happen again. I think this could be the file problem so I try the other video file. This time it run better then previous file but it still the same it pause and I get to listen the sound before I can see the video.

I know my laptop is bit old but it doesn’t really happen for the Quicktime and Window Media Player. Actually I think Real Player is quite user friendly to me, and it also play many types of files like mpeg, avi etc, but it just not working for my laptop and luckily I didn’t set it as default player. Therefore I don’t really know what actual happen for the Real Player in my laptop, maybe is time for me to get the new laptop and maybe it will run smoother I guess.

Search Manager/Combiners - Sherlock

I guess most of the Mac user will use it at least once since it is so popular last time. It is a big hit when it just started I guess it was so advance on that time and now there are many competitors out there and Apple focus on more making money then this searching tool, therefore it became unpopular this day. I personally don’t really use Sherlock because I don’t really find it useful for me and I almost forgot about this program on my Mac.

I also do not know Sherlock no longer exist on Mac OSX 10.5 system until I heard from my classmate. I did not read or heard any news from Mac or anywhere on internet it mention Sherlock is no more, but I do know my Mac OSX 10.4 have a similar program call Spotlight, which I don’t really use it as well. I guess both of them are quite similar function.

Sherlock was introduced in early Mac OS 8 (if I am not wrong) as a tool for searching the contents of your computer as well as It helps you search for books, music, movies, electronics, news, look up email addresses, and shop on the Internet etc. You can also select channels to focus your Internet search too.

I have tried to use Sherlock to search ‘Movie Database’ see what the outcome is, and the results telling me Sherlock definitely can’t compare with Google because the results is huge different.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 4: Using the infosphere: taking & organising. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985243_1

Real Player 11. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://www.real.com.au/mac/?lang=en&loc=au

Module 3 - Web 2.0

LOG ENTRY:
what do you think are the differences between the two? what are the benefits? which format do you think you would like better and why? (Allen et al. n.d.)

I personally like Diigo web site more than HTML version, I find it easy to look at and comfortable to read and understand between the headings, sub-headings and the information. Diigo is more user friendly web site compare to HTML version, the way the Diigo presented look very neat and organised, the structure and format are easy to focus on and much faster to find what you looking for.

The reasons I find HTML version are difficult for me to look at are the colour and the structure. HTML version page contain blue colour headings, black sub-headings and white colour background which is very hard to read. The structure from top all the way down to bottom are the same, let’s imagine this HTML version contain more than thousand of information, will you still continue to search what you looking from top to bottom? To me HTML version is very hard to focus especially on wide screen. HTML version should have bold the headings, larger some font and put some spacing in between the paragraph, I believe it will be much better. Over all HTML page is quite user friendly because it is simple web page with headings and sub-headings, the only thing is difficult to focus to look and read.

I have try to print on paper to compare the Diigo and HTML version and I found that Diigo remain the same as easy to look at and surprisingly HTML version is much more easy to read and look at from the print out instead of reading from the screen. This could be my personal reference but I do prefer to read HTML version from print out, al thought everything same from the screen but print version more easy to focus to read in between the headings and sub-headings.

You can found dates, bookmarks, annotations and much more from Diigo and these are very important for people to find out what they want. HTML version have nothing at all, therefore you won’t know the article you reading is up-to-date or long time ago.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 3 Contributing to the Infosphere. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 9, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985242_1

Net11 Internet Communications’s Bookmarks. (2009). DiigoV3 beta. Retrieved August 9, 2009, from
http://www.diigo.com/user/net11resources

Net 11. (n.d.). Retrieved August 9, 2009, from
http://wievia.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p8GOFx-eIftrxl3h80up_xuZsctBHCKWcH_uCngHae_M_zdfG5A8mxh0wlgpFfx3g_ji273o8NyVIosEsl_PVp-Mvnffqji3I/net11.html

Module 3 - Blogs

LOG ENTRY:
In your learning log, record your thoughts. Consider various uses for blogs such as citizen journalism and personal blogging. Have you seen in your net travels any interesting uses for blogs? This blog entry is an opportunity to tell us what you really think of blogging! (Allen et al. n.d.)

I do hearing about blogs before from friends, internet, TV programs etc but I never really try it until I start this course. I have to admit that I am still not a blogging person because I still prefer read words from paper rather than reading a long copy from screen, one of the reasons is my eye can’t really stand it, my eye get tire easy if I stare on screen for long time.

I also have to said that after this unit I do really learn what actually blogs is and I don’t really hate it, but I will not do my own blog because I don’t really have much time, but I am quite enjoying to see what other people blogs, especially if I am interest in. For example the movie blog.com I found this blog after I start this unit and visit quite often. The main reason is I am a movies fan and this blog give me the latest information about the movies, actors, reviews etc.

I also found there are many blogs for free movies download. It’s this legal? If not why the blog still exist? It is a real movie or pirated? I have many questions and I don’t understand, I didn’t try because I don’t have much MB to do such thing and I also not willing to do it. I have just happen to finished my ‘Legal Issues’ task about the copyright, although it is not about the movies, but I never know that you can actually use blogs to download and upload movies and musics, or you can watch the movies or TV programs online instead of downloading it, honestly I only heard of using some softwares or programs to download movies online but definitely not from blogs. I guess I am too out dated.

I believe blogs can be good and also can be bad. The good one will be provided information to people to read and get the knowledge, exchange the information or opinions and also open for discussion. The bad one will be some people using blogs to downloading or uploading things which they know is illegal and they still try to breach it.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 3 Contributing to the Infosphere. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 8, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985242_1

Themovieblog.com. (2009). Retrieved August 8, 2009, from http://www.themovieblog.com/

Module 3 - Legal Issues

LOG ENTRY:
Record your findings in your learning log! (Allen et al. n.d.)

Have you used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws? (Allen et al. n.d.)

I wish I can say no, but I am not really sure because it is very hard to say I have contravened the copyright law. To be honest I think everyone did contravene copyright law, but I also believe it wasn’t on purpose because we are not sure and we have no such copyright law knowledge.

I am pretty sure most of the people will at least use once famous word from the movies, music lyrics, TV commercials, books or famous people etc for fun or other reason. For example ‘To be or not to be” from William Shakespeare or ‘Finger Licking Good ‘ from KFC TV commercial etc. So are we breaking the law? Do people really care and know about it? And how do the law judge we are contravening the copyright law? A year 1 teacher asks the students to cut some magazine images and stick on a paper to make it as creative as possible for the school project, how do we explain to these students what are the copyright laws? Will they understand and follow?

Even stated on black and white people will still do it, because their thinking is nobody will care and they just have to risk it. If it doesn’t happen they will keep doing it until the day when the company or organisations sue them for copyright.


Would you be in breach of copyright if you put the Curtin logo at the top of your web page for an assignment? This information may be difficult to find so be prepared for a search and some independent thought! (Allen et al. n.d.)

According to the Logo Use Procedures and Copyright at Curtin web page you will be breach of copyright if you use the logo without permission. They have provided all the contact information and rules and regulations to follow, such as logotype of Curtin, supporting text of University of technology and the shield of Curtin traditional symbol etc. If you get the permission from them yes you are allow to use them. I believe call them will be the best way to find out what and how you should do.


Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 3 Contributing to the Infosphere. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985242_1

Logo use procedures. (2004). Retrieved August 9, 2009, from http://policies.curtin.edu.au/local/includes/getdoc.cfm?url=https://ecm.curtin.edu.au:443/alfresco/gd/d/workspace/SpacesStore/b9eeb000-648c-11de-bd31-ed274d0857ea/Logo%20Use%20Procedures.html?guest=true&policyId=959f55ad-fec2-11dc-b6c5-253dc30d60f2

Copyright at Curtin. (2008). Retrieved August 9, 2009, from http://copyright.curtin.edu.au/essentials.cfm

Module 3 - WWW Standards

Optional ‘standards’ task:

Make a summary of what you believe are the 5 most important ‘rules’ for writing online. Think about any differences between the articles: for example, is the advice in Nielsen’s paper -- written in 1997 – still current?

LOG ENTRY:
Record your summaries and comments in your learning log (Allen et al. n.d.)

My top 5 rules are:

1. Fonts
It is very important to use the right font for the web sites. Helvetica, Verdana and Arial are good because it is simple, easy to read and recognize for the visitor. Colour and bold for highlighting the text will also help to catch the eye attention.

2. Bullet points
Using bullet points instead of putting in whole lot of information, this will make visitor turn away and lose of interest to read. Visitor prefers easy text information then long copy, they may just scanned through or ignore it if you offer them long copy. Therefore bullet points are helping the visitor read easily and understand faster.

3. User friendly
Try to make the website as user friendly as possible. Some web sites are quite difficult to use, because visitors hard to go back to home page or try to find the page they visit before. This could be the problem of the navigation or the web page design too complicated for them to use and understand, which mean visitors will find other similar web site instead of visit this web site again.

4. Simply the best
Not too much of text, not to link too many of videos and graphics. This will help to load faster and easy to focus on what the visitor should look first and also not too many advertisements because this will distract them.

5. Headings
Use interesting or eye catching title for heading will sure draw visitor attention to read the article or the web site. Even though not a bullet point forms of information, visitor will be quite happy to read it. But try to cut it short and keep the main message as simple as possible.

Reference
Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Module 3 Contributing to the Infosphere. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985242_1

Concepts Reflection & Research Project

Concept #2 Your audience's use of communication

“Many effective email practices depend on understanding how the audience for your messages will use the information you are sending them., or more precisely, how you wish them to use it. (‘Use’ here includes many different things).” (Allen et al. n.d.)

About half a million Australian have been joining Facebook, and this is not the latest registered figure because Facebook is getting more people to join in everyday and getting more popularity around the world this day. People log on to Facebook all the time, people have use it to improve their communication skill, to build connection and social life through Facebook all over the world. Facebook not just only targeting teenagers and students, it is actually for almost everyone who loves to access social networking website.

According to the survey nearly one in four companies are banning their employee to visit social networking website like Facebook and MySpace, but there are many more like Twitter and others have not mentioned. People who have been accessing to Facebook are usually 35 years old and above during their working hours in America and it keep growing daily. Some of the company has warned their employee that accessing to Facebook during working hours will get fire. The survey from employment law firm Peninsula said that employee cost British company 130 million pound a day, and they have spend 233 million hours a month on social networking site. It also said 25 percent of British people generally have spend around 5.3 hours a month on Facebook

Therefore, many companies are banning their employee to access social networking website during their working hours. There is no doubt that some staffs are using Facebook during working hours for non-work purposes, even company’s policy said no visiting Facebook and I am pretty sure some of them will be cheating and still visit Facebook. It is understand that why company have to ban their employee to visit Facebook, they should not do that during working hours, because company pay them to work not to browsing Facebook and it also wasting company’s resources. The employer also concern about their employee may be mistaken or purposely to expose their company secret information to their friends in social networking site like Facebook. They also concern about the productivity of their employee if they visiting social networking sites during their working hours (extra demand on bandwidth, slow down corporate networks). In fact, it is quite likely that some of them are wrongly use of the privilege to some extent and spending lot of time on Facebook. However, that should be clear in their work like setting a clear guideline. If they are not getting work done, then it becomes an issue. If they are getting their work done and this is what the employer employ them for.

There are so many of the social networking sites, Facebook it just only one of them and there will be more to come, therefore some of the company try to avoid having a problems with the employees so that these company allow their employees access to Facebook for personal use during their break, and these companies has make sure all the employees are clear and follow company’s web policy what should and what shouldn’t do during working hours for accessing to Facebook, I guess this may be the win win situation for both side so far.

(521 words)


Site 1:
Firing off... social networking - should employers ban Facebook?

Work Clinic blog, where a blog that let employee post their comments, debate or discuss of their personal opinions from work and also about banning Facebook.

Some people said they should set a clear guideline of acceptable and unacceptable website for employee during their stay in the office. An advice or warning to convey for whom still doing it, it may create a bad relationship in between employees and employer to ban Facebook, because employees feel lacking of trusts. Internet psychologist Graham Jones said if you banning employees for visiting their favourite sites will be like cutting their body part.
(100 words)

Reference
Firing off... social networking - should employers ban Facebook? (2007). Personnel Today, 68. Retrieved July 17, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.


Site 2:
Employers Ban Facebook, MySpace Millenials May Have to Deal with No Social Networking at Work

The group of baby boomers and older GenX compare with new generation have quite a different point of view about the computer usage. The baby boomers and older GenX think that to make sure to keep good quality of the work they must control of computer usage, which new generation think that new technology will help them to improve their working ability. Therefore it is very hard to define who is right and who is wrong, it is all depend on people’s point of view. According to the survey young workers thinking of quit their job if banning them to visit social networking sites.
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Reference
Hildebrand, D. (2008). Employers Ban Facebook, MySpace Millenials May Have to Deal with No Social Networking at Work. Retrieved July 17, 2009, from http://human-resources-management.suite101.com/article.cfm/employers_ban_facebook_myspace


References

Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Concept #2 Your audience's use of communication. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved July 17, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985239_1

At least 70% of City firms ban 'time-wasting' staff from using Facebook during office hours. (2007). Retrieved July 19, 2009, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-471220/At-70-City-firms-ban-time-wasting-staff-using-Facebook-office-hours.html

Barber, B. (2007). Face up to facts. Accountancy Age, 12. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Breen, S. (2007). Talking 'bout my generation . . The Courier – Mail, 22. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Brodkin, J. (2008). One in four firms block Facebook. Network World 25(28), 20. Retrieved July 18, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

O’Loan, J. (2007). Face-off over Facebook - Businesses ban workers' site access. The Courier – Mail, 4. Retrieved July 18, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Simpson, P. (2008). Benefit from the Facebook phenomenon. MicroScope, 14. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

VERTICAL MARKETS: Networking for business. (2008). Precision Marketing, 19. Retrieved July 18, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.



Concept #7 Netiquette

"Good communication practice on the Internet is not something one 'learns', but something one 'practices' so as to teach others, less familiar than yourself, how it is done." (Allen et al. n.d.)

Bullying no longer just doing it on face-to-face or behind people’s back, now it went to cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is very different compare to face-to-face, because no one will know who they are; they will use fake profile to register so that their identity and bully remain hidden and it is difficult to trace, because of this reason it help and encourage them to bullies more than doing it on face-to-face.

Nowadays people use, chat room, mobile phone, SMS, email etc to attack, pressure or threaten and they are actually intentionally doing it to someone. It is also very easy to bully in cyberspace than to bully face-to-face, with cyber bullying you can pick on anyone, anytime and anywhere you like with less risk of being caught by people. Therefore it makes cyber bullying the new weapon to harass people and convenient way to do it.

Internet, SMS, mobile etc. they are very important social and communication tool for teenagers nowadays, they can’t live without it, and they can spend very long time on chat room, SMS during study or even dinner time, I am pretty sure you have seen this before.

They send mean and cruel messages to the people they intent to bully; they also send the bullies’ video on internet they have record from mobile to show it to the world. According to the research and study said most of them are teenagers and students, they access to the latest technologies, they bullied their classmate or have been bullied by them, either from computer, mobile phone or any other electronic device. It also said that bullying remains popular especially in middle school. It is not just cyber bullying it also including verbal bullying and physical bullying.

Here are some of the examples to show that what actually is cyber bullying.

• A student attacking by unidentified person over the emails, this student has no idea who the person and wondering who and why sending the message to him/her and they feel like everyone is against them at school.
• A student getting some strange email messages from some people they don’t know. These messages are vulgar, bad, harsh and etc because someone has use the student’s real identities and photo to posted on some social networking

Professor Donna Cross from Edith Cowan University said kids being cyber bullying most likely will suffer from depression, anxiety and affected their self-esteem. Some of them commit suicide because of the cyber bullying and it is getting more and more this day because of they can’t handle the pressure and mental torture. Even though no mobile for them, remove computer from their bedrooms, limited time for them to visit some social networking sites, switching off the computer or ask them to block or delete or even not respond to it etc. will not solve the problems and not help to stop it and not even a good idea to do it. Rumour really hurt them; when rumour spread around the teenagers feel seriously ruin their reputation and their popularity, and they also said that adult do not usually trust them and do not really care about the cyber bullying.

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Site 1:
When teens turn cyberbullies

Cyber bullying are using electronic media to harass, threaten or attacking people, they are involving email, chat rooms, sms, mobile and many others communication tools. The people who did that usually hiding their real identify and they can be physically weaken then the people they try to bully. They also don’t feel upset or guilty because they never face-to-face contact with them. Cyber bullying usually are very hard to trace, therefore they can getaway blame for their bad action and being caught and punished. Jealousy is one of the common motivations for cyber bullying. Teachers are also the bullied target at school, it wasn’t just the students only.
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Reference
Strom, P. S., and Strom, R. D. (2005). When teens turn cyberbullies. The Education Digest 71(4), 35. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.


Site 2:
Cyber bullying information

The definition of the cyber bullying is using the latest communication technologies to frighten, disturb, humiliate or bully. It is all about power; it is all about the misconduct of the power. The technology is not the main problem; the problem is we let the teenagers to do what they want to do and because of this cyber bullying is the fastest increasing bullying. The sign of cyber bullying are taking longer hours on the computer; stomach-ache; no appetite; close the windows when in the room; afraid; behind the school homework and hiding for internet activity.
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Reference
Stutzky, G. (n.d.). Cyber bullying information. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from http://www.ippsr.msu.edu/Documents/Forums/2006_Mar_CYBER_BULLYING_INFORMATION_2006%20--%20Provided%20by%20Mr.%20Glenn%20Stutzky.pdf

References

Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Concept #7 Netiquette. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985239_1

Cyberbullying. (2007). Retrieved July 20, 2009, from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1023061,00.html

Edwards, J. (2008). Watch for online bullying, but don't overreact, expert advises: Internet safety. McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Spicer, T. (2009). Bullies have found a new gateway to evil. The Dialy Telegraph, 25. Retrieved July 21, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Teen's death highlights cyber bullying trend. (2009). ABC Premium News. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

West, P. (2009). Cyber Bullying Affects One in 10 Students. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from http://www.mercybehavioral.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=120154&cn=28




Concept #17 The impact of text-based real-time chat

“You might think that, with the widespread availability of telephones, an internet-based system of real-time communication involving the typing of text messages would be hardly used, or at least, of little relevance. You would be wrong. Real-time internet-based text chat is a significant part of contemporary internet use. The question then to be asked is: what is the difference here that makes this mode of communication popular; and then what impact does it have of the kinds of communication and social interaction that take place?” (Allen et al. n.d.)

Instant messaging (IM), the text-based real-time chat is one of the increasingly fastest online communication technologies and allows real-time interaction thought computer or mobile. They are MSN, ICQ, AOL Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and many more like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Microsoft Live Communication Server 2005 and IBM Lotus Instant Messaging for corporate company and the users are growing phenomenon stronger and stronger every day.

IM can be use between two and more people, they can join group for conversation, sending files, chatting or massaging. There are many different user groups, from teenager, business person, to elder people to communicate in cyber space or far-off places. The reason that IM becomes so popular beside the element of the basic communication tools the most important is real-time communication. IM is very different from email, you don’t have to worry how long is the person going to take to reply you the important email, and it might take few minutes to 1 day to get the answer. IM is on real-time, whenever the person you wish to talk is online, your message will reach them immediately.

The technology changed everyday therefore text-based IM have changed from typed text to more variety like sending images, audio and video files and others come with attachments and video conference. Skype is one of the latest and most popular so far, but the service is chargeable for making call but it is cheap, the rest of the service is free like sending images, audios, videos and files. Therefore Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Apple considered video and voice call is the important part for IM. IM is so popular that everyone thinks is the new black of the latest trendy online communication tools, especially for the new generation most of them are teenagers and office workers. According to the report from Micheal Osterman said more than 80 percent of company are using IM and email becoming state of the art.

IM is a great way to communicate; you can use it to contact your families, friends, and colleagues for personal or business purpose. Most of them are teenagers and young adults; they use it for studies, doing home works, exchange information, keeping up with friends.

Some examples show that students use IM for last minute like homework, presentation and research. They have try to email but it taking too long to response and they do not have much time, therefore IM is the faster way, as long as the person online they can reach them immediately. Same thing happen in some corporate company, some of the manager use IM to educate their staff, feedback of the work and meeting.

IM increasingly use by many company, businessman or corporate company, it help them save money for long distance call, also can send messages, chat, video conferencing or sending files to each other. Some of the company already start to use IM in the office as their daily communication tools to internal stuffs or external clients instead of installing expensive phone system in the company. The function same as phone system, you can reach the person instantly in same or different offices or anywhere around the world.

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Site 1:
The impact of the chat: A brief literature review

This article provides a good description of the communication. It said that internet communication getting more popular then mobile and email, people communicate for work and non for work purposes, communicate help them to feel good about themselves. User communicate with other people without afraid of who they are and there is no limitation of the topic, it can be their same interest, therefore communication help them to improve their life to be more happier than ever. However there is also a bad thing about people who use fake identities to communicate with other and this behaviour make them very hard to switch back to their real identity.
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Reference
The impact of the chat: A brief literature review. (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2009, from http://cm058.k12.sd.us/portfolio/key5/the%20Impact%20of%20The%20Chat_lit%20review.doc


Site 2:
Why real-time text?

The answer for real-time text is voice telephony, other like SMS, MMS and email are message based system, and instant messaging are between both of them. This article also mentions about deaf and hearing problem people, they used variety communication systems but it really depends on what is suitable for them well. They need to communicate not just limit to the deaf people only, they also need to communicate with the world and other people too. Although they limited to some text based or character by character communication tools but such as SMS or instant messaging is not enough for them so they have to use voice telephony.
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Reference
Why real-time text? (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2009, from http://www.ictrnid.org.uk/whyrtt.html


References

Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Concept #17 The impact of text-based real-time chat. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved July 21, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jspcourse_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985239_1

Email etiquette. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://www.emailreplies.com/

Instant Messaging At Work. (2005). Career World 33(4), 4. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Internet-based Communications. (2005). Retrieved July 21, 2009, from http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2005/internet_communications.asp

Patil, S., and Kobsa, A. (n.d.). Instant messaging and privacy. Retrieved July 22, 2009, from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/papers/2004-HCI-kobsa.pdf

Strom, D. (2006). I.M. Generation Is Changing the Way Business Talks. New York Times, G.4. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.

Text-based chat is very small talk. (2004). Retrieved July 22, 2009, from http://www.shorewalker.com/section4/chat_disappoints.html

7 Things You Should Know About Instant Messaging. (2005). Retrieved July 22, 2009, from http://www.educause.edu/ELI/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutInsta/156811

Concept #18 Non-speech communication through text: audience and authors' responsibilities

“… the responsibility for effective chatting lies not merely with the author of a particular comment, but with its audience. In other words, if IRC is to be rich and valuable as a form of communication (and it can be), then both those saying things and those reading them must share the tasks of making it so. If they do so, then text chat can function very well as a different form of communication, with its own strengths and weaknesses and not merely as a 'lesser' version of something else.” (Allen et al. n.d.)

Text-based communications sometimes can be very boring and dull, because you can only read the text and without seeing and knowing the expression of the body language of the person who sending you a message. It doesn’t really matter from email, SMS, Facebook or any other text-based communication programs. No one can see you laugh, feeling sad, wink, scream, happy etc when you talk or chat to someone over the cyberspace.

Text-based communications sometimes can be very boring and dull, because you can only read the text and without seeing and knowing the expression of the body language of the person who sending you a message. It doesn’t really matter from email, SMS, Facebook or any other text-based communication programs. No one can see you laugh, feeling sad, wink, scream, happy etc when you talk or chat to someone over the cyberspace.

Imagine how do you convey all the messages to someone through the texts from your feeling and expression? Can the words really express it and tell the story? Can the reader really understand your felling when he or she reading your messages? Who should take such a responsibility to make the audiences to understand what you trying to say? Have you ever tried to describe something and you cannot find any words to explain to it? There are millions of words we can use, but it just not always works all the time. Sometimes you just have to mix the texts with some visual or symbol to make it clearer.

That is why people have come out some very simple emotion icons or called emoticons or smileys to help us to express our feelings through the texts. Without any of these smileys and emoticons symbol text-based communications programs can be very boring to read. Emoticons or smileys does really help to add some spark into texts and it also label as the mood of the words from many writers over cyberspace. You just have to tilt your head to one side to see the expression and feel it. It also helps to cut short of the sentence from instance messaging, SMS, and other text-based communications programs, therefore you don’t really have to type so many texts especially on SMS.

The most common emoticons or smileys symbols are smiley face :-) and frowny face :-(, you probably can see it every day from your email, SMS and any other text-based communication programs and there are many of more of them. Beside emoticons or smileys, acronym is also very important to our daily typing on any text-based communication programs like email, Facebook or MSN etc, because it helps us to shorten the unnecessary long texts to just few words, it also helping slow typers and disabilities to type more efficiency and faster. For example the most common are LOL, it mean laughing out loud or lots of luck.

Never ever over express your feeling by typing all caps on any text-based communication programs because it mean you are SHOUTING TO THE PERSON. This is definitely not a creative way to express your feeling and it may interpret misunderstanding message to the reader. Therefore we have to be very careful of what we try to say over the text-based communication programs, because nobody can really see your expression, whatever you said may be mislead the reader to misunderstanding of something else.

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Site 1
Use Smileys to Add Emotions to Your Emails

Nobody can see your expression or listen to your voice when you reading an email, it does the same to the person who write you the email too, both are definitely not sure the reaction of both side writing and reading the email. Sometime it may lost or missing the true meaning of what you really trying to tell. It also very difficult to express your emotions through the words, therefore, smiles and emoticons symbols are helping us to express our feeling on any text-based communication tools.

Sometime adding in the emoticons symbols will helps the message easier to understand. ;-).
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Reference
Tschabitscher, H. (n.d.). Use smileys to add emotions to your emails. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from http://email.about.com/cs/smileysacronyms/a/smiley_emotion.htm


Site 2
Happy in the East ( -- ) or Smiling :-) in the West

Mr. Furuse said to his employee “If you tilt your head, you will see the face'', this is refereeing to the smiley emoticons :-) which recognized by most westerner, but Japanese think that’s difficult to understand. So that some of the Japanese users come out their own version of emoticons, it read right side up instead of usual sideway. Japanese don’t usually use sadness or anger emoticons just to avoid unnecessary misunderstood to others Japanese. Since that’s no curl upward in any of the computer keyboard, the smiley emoticons in Japanese looks like this ( -- ) sometimes ( o ) shows a character with arms raised and cheer.
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Reference
Andrew, P. (1996). Happy in the East ( -- ) or Smiling :-) in the West. New York Times, D.5. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from ProQuest LLC.


References

Allen, M., et al. (n.d.). Concept #18 Non-speech communication through text: audience and authors' responsibilities. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985239_1

Emoticons, Chat Abbreviations and Avatars. (n.d.). Retrieved July 26, 2009, from http://www.adultstudent.com/student/emoticons.html

Fahlman, S. E. (n.d.). Smiley Lore :-). Retrieved July 26, 2009, from http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm

Gil, P. (n.d.). Emoticons and Smileys 101. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from http://netforbeginners.about.com/cs/netiquette101/a/bl_emoticons101_5.htm

Marks, T. (2004). Recommended Emoticons for Email Communication For AIM, AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Others. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from http://www.windweaver.com/emoticon.htm

The NetLingo List of Acronyms & Text Message Shorthand. (n.d.). Retrieved July 25, 2009, from http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

What is an Acronym? (2009). Retrieved July 26, 2009, from http://www.disabled-world.com/communication/text-shortcuts.php